


dave and the DRAGON

by BlameMyMuses



Series: Dragon Slaying for Fun and Profit [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU, Blatant anachronisms, Gen, dragonstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-09
Updated: 2013-09-19
Packaged: 2017-12-18 07:01:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/876966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlameMyMuses/pseuds/BlameMyMuses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave goes off to slay his first dragon, and doesn't quite get the fearsome beast he was expecting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. ==> Be the guy slaying the dragon

The dragon was not what Dave had been expecting. For one thing, it was kind of small, and its scales were a dull, boring gray rather than the burnished jewel tones like the ones his bro had brought home. It didn't even have wings, or impressive horns, just two sad little nubs pointing out from the back of its head. For another, it wasn't even awake to strife with him. It was curled up, cat-like, on its pile of gold and gems.

 

Okay, so the treasure hoard was pretty damn impressive.

 

The dragon curled tighter about itself as Dave watched, a clawed foot coming up to hide its muzzle.

 

 _Well, if that shit isn't just precious as fuck,_ Dave thought. _But a dragon's a dragon, and I'm a knight._ His hand was on the pommel of his sword and he had his strife playlist already going loud in his earbuds as he drew his sword from its sheath.

 

The sound of steel scraping away from metal woke the dragon.

 

“Oh, _fuck_ , no,” said the dragon. It stood quickly, gold and silver coins shifting perilously from under its claws.

 

That was unexpected, too. Bro had never mentioned that dragons could speak English.

 

“'Sup, dragon,” said Dave. “Thought you and I could have a strife or some shit. To the death, I guess.”

 

“This is not fucking happening. _Damn it_ , I just fucking got all my shit moved into my new cave, and of course there has to be a fucking _dragon slaying knight_ in the neighborhood! Fuck you, knight! I'm not leaving, not when I've just gotten all my shit arranged! You leave!”

 

For such a very _small_ dragon, he sure could shout loudly. Dave could hear him perfectly, despite how loud he had his iPod turned up. With a sigh, he tugged the earbuds out, resting the point of his sword in the ground near the toes of his worn hightops.

 

“I'm not, actually,” he said, tone mild.

 

The dragon glared (impressive, for a creature without proper eyebrows). “Not what?” he snarled.

 

“A dragon slaying knight. That's why I'm here. My bro's one of the best, and it kind of puts a cool kid like me under a lot of pressure—a lot to live up to, you know?” Dave pushed his sunglasses back up the bridge of his nose. It was overly warm in the cave (dragons apparently put out a lot of body heat—it made a certain amount of sense, when he stopped to think about it) and he felt a bit like he was cooking in his full plate armor. “So, sorry dude, but I'm gonna have to ask that we cease with the talking, and get to the strifing.”

 

“Fuck you, you nookmunching asshole! And fuck your stupid brother, too!”

 

Now that was just plain going too far. Dave raised the point of his sword. “Alright, now you're just asking for it,” he said. “Only I'm allowed to call Bro stupid.”

 

The dragon didn't bother responding. He scraped his claws through the gold, digging in for better purchase as if bracing himself. Dave had heard enough about dragons to know he should probably flashstep the hell outta there.

 

He dodged to the right, and just in time. The dragon let loose flames so hot they burned vivid white, and left heat ripples in the air for yards around them, and his throat flashed neon crimson. The dragon didn't wait to see if his flames had caught Dave, either. He followed after them instantly, claws like little sickle moons extended and reaching, as if seeking to rend Dave's plate armor like the dragon was a can opener, and Dave was a prime piece of canned spam. The dragon was small, but deadly serious.

 

Dave grinned, and pushed his sunglasses back into place.

 

The impending strife had just got a hell of lot more interesting.

 

**== > Strife!**


	2. ==> Strife!

With coins and jeweled necklaces making his footing difficult, the strife between Dave and the dragon was far more challenging than Dave had anticipated. He almost regretted having gone with his full plate armor instead of something lighter, easier to dodge in, until the dragon's claws screeched across his breastplate, sending sparks flying up into his face. After that close call, he was more than happy to deal with the extra weight of the heavy plates.

 

Unfortunately, the dragon's pebbly scales were as hard as rock—more like a carapace than scales at all—and his sword was equally useless against them. One strike had hit so hard the blade was left vibrating in his hands so violently that he felt the tremors in his teeth. Dave had simply gritted them, and struck again. Harder.

 

The strife was kind of pointless. A larger dragon would have been slow enough that Dave could have taken the time necessary to find a weakness in its natural armor—some gap in its scales, or something—but the grey dragon was small, and very fast. He didn't have the dangerous horns that Dave had seen hung as trophies in various inns and taverns, or the long barbed tail that books of dragon lore mentioned (his tail was as stubby as his horns), but his fire was hot and fast as lightning, and the claws on all four feet were no laughing matter.

 

Dave was seriously tempted to abscond, but his pride wouldn't allow for such a thing. And, anyway, he thought he had noticed a tell in the dragon's fighting style. Every time the dragon was preparing to breathe flames, the softer flesh of his throat burned brightest red, spreading in a flush down through his chest. It gave Dave all the warning he needed so that he could flashstep out of the way.

 

He wasn't sure what his tell was, though the dragon seemed to have spotted one, because he never managed to land a blow, either.

 

As the fight drew on, both of them began to slow, and they were both breathing hard. The dragon's flames came out a little less hot—less white, more orange flames—and Dave's flashsteps were turning into flash-stumbles. Not cool at all.

 

With his back pressed to a stalagmite and breathing in sharp pants, Dave tried to think of anything he could do to get out of this epically failed strife with his pride intact, but the only idea he had was kind of crazy. Certainly, it wouldn't have occurred to his Bro as a possible solution.

 

“Hey, dragon,” he called, hoping the cave would bounce his voice around enough that his location would remain a secret.

 

“WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT NOW, KNIGHT?” Dave winced. The dragon had only gotten angrier and shoutier the longer they'd fought.

 

“How about a truce? We can sit and chat things out, solve our disputes like politicians or some shit.”

 

“I didn't have a 'dispute' with you in the first place, you stupid grubfucking bulgebrain! You came strolling into my gogdamn hive like you owned it, and proceeded to inform me that my demise was imminent!”

 

It was, unfortunately, true. Dave shrugged.

 

“Yeah, my bad. But I'm pretty sure this strife is at a complete stalemate, and I assume that you'd like to walk away from it alive as much as I would. So, how 'bout it?”

 

There was a long, _long_ pause. Dave half-wondered if talking so much _had_ given away his location, and that even as he waited for a response the dragon was silently moving towards him...though, on second thought, he wasn't sure the dragon was capable of doing _anything_ silently...

 

Finally, he heard an exasperated sigh.

 

“Yeah, sure, what the hell. I'll _talk_ with you, knight. Not like I'm not already enough of an outcast or anything. Let's add 'consorting with humans' to my already innumerable list of fucking crimes.”

 

“Cool. So, I'll come on out, then, and you promise not to blow any more hot air my way, right?”

 

“Yeah, yeah. And you won't whack me any more with your pathetically shitty human weapon, either.”

 

“Sounds 'bout right, yup,” said Dave, and came slowly out from behind the stalagmite. He was not so stupid as to sheath his sword right away, however. The dragon wasn't stupid either, of course, and Dave saw that his throat was still flushed a dull red, though nowhere near the same vivd shade that proceeded a flame.

 

An awkward silence was a thing that happened. Both of them stood there, staring at each other from across the cave, heaps of treasure between them.

 

“So,” said Dave.

 

The dragon rolled its eyes. “So,” he mimicked Dave.

 

Dave shrugged, glancing around admiringly at the mountains of boonbucks strewn across the floor. “I dig your pad, dragon. Sweetest cave I ever saw.”

 

“Karkat.”

 

Dave blinked, and raised an eyebrow above the blank panes of his sunglasses in a silent question.

 

The dragon growled low, the red flaring just a bit. “My name,” he spat out, “is _Karkat_ , not 'dragon,' Sir Shitstain. If we're going to have a truce, we should have it properly, with names and handshakes and meaningful promises that neither of us mean at all.”

 

Dave smirked in spite of himself.

 

“And I'm Sir Dave, second son of the House of Strider, dragon, not 'Sir Shitstain.'” He strode across the floor, kicking aside a few ugly tiaras as he finally sheathed the sword (and the dragon—Karkat—was right, it was a kind of shitty sword, really) and stuck a gloved hand out.

 

With another put-upon sigh, the dragon extended a taloned forepaw, and they shook hands like civilized people (which was really the best sort of irony Dave could possibly imagine just then).

 

“Why,” said the dragon, “do I feel like I'm going to regret this life choice...?”  
  
  
 **== > Ask a question**


	3. ==> Ask a question

  
“So, dragon—and, by 'dragon' I obviously mean 'Karkat' seeing as how that's your name and all—” Dave said, quick to correct himself as the dragon's throat flared ruby. “Why is it that I've never heard of dragons being intelligent before?”

 

“Because they're not,” Karkat snapped. Then he rolled his eyes and sighed out, breath hot enough to burn. “Well, no,” he said. “We're intelligent enough on our own. It's just that we lack the organization you humans are so good at. We're too competitive for our own good, really. We can work in small groups, cooperative teams, but never for very long. It's only a matter of time before someone gets bored and decides a little bit of backclawing would be more interesting.”

 

“And the whole stealing damsels in distress thing? 'Cause, dude, shit ain't cool. Shit is downright harsh.”

 

Karkat shrugged and there was something odd and _disconnected_ about the gesture, almost as if...damn, looks like he was wrong about him not having wings, but fuck if they aren't the tiniest things Dave had ever seen. The wings lift away from him with the motion, then clamp back down as if he's embarrassed by them, until they're indiscernible from the rest of his pebbly grey hide again.

 

“Some dragons take damsels for the conversation, others because they claim they taste sweeter. I've never seen the goddamn appeal, myself.”

 

Dave shifted, and his armor made what _should_ have been a fairly subtle change in his stance much more noticeable. Karkat glanced at him, and with exaggerated carelessness Dave begian to remove the bracers and his gorget. “So, like, say if a girl I knew were to have been taken, then. What's the best case scenario in which she'd be 'not dead'?”

 

Karkat's gaze sharpened. “Quit speaking in bullshit hypotheticals, Strider, it's fucking ridiculous when we're both perfectly aware you're incapable of actually acting coy to save your shitsucking life.”

 

Dave tilted his head, the only open acknowledgment the dragon was going to get from him that he's actually correct. Coy was _definitely_ not Dave's middle name, and for a good reason.

 

“All right,” Dave said instead. “My cousin Rose was taken by a dragon two weeks ago. What are her chances?”

 

“Better hope she wasn't an only child,” snapped Karkat, teeth clashing audibly. Dave winced.

 

“I was afraid of that. It's just...” He trailed off, not sure how to voice the thought that had been plaguing him since she'd been taken.

 

“'It's just' fucking what, Strider? Finish a goddamn sentence before the end of this miserable taint whipped excuse for a century, will you?”

 

“Well, it's just it's _Rose_. She knows more about scary monsters—your illustrious self included, naturally—than anyone else I've ever met. I almost wonder if she didn't _want_ to get captured by a dragon.”

 

Karkat said something snarly and unintelligible, and Dave could only guess that that's what proper dragon language sounds like, before he's standing up from the comfortable nest he'd made himself in a pile of gold and gemstones, and shaking off spare bits of jewelry like a dog shakes sand after a day at the beach. Dave stared until Karkat turned back and meets his eyes.

 

“Why is your species so mindscorchingly idiotic at every other fucking turn, Strider?”

 

“Talent, probably. And the Lalonde-Strider families have more talent than most. What are Rose's chances?”

 

“Is she a good conversationalist? Can she make with the pretty fucking words, and the genteel compliments? Can she stroke an ego like it's the family cat, Strider? Because if not...”

 

Well, shit. That wasn't a terribly promising outlook, then.

 

“Rose is more likely to dissect your brain than she is to praise your thoughts. She's good at needlework,” Dave added, smiling a bit. “Not that she ever cared much for it in the _traditional_ sense, really.”

 

“I can't think of one single dragon who's going to fucking care to sit around for long just watching some moronic human female _sew_ , Strider. If you want any chance of ever seeing your cousin again, we'd best go find this dragon, and you let _me_ do the negotiating.”

 

Dave sighed, pulling his so recently divested armor back on with resignation. Just like praising a stranger's imaginary good qualities was not one of Rose's particular skills, neither did he think it would be one of Karkat's talents.


End file.
